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Hoo, boy, let me see if I can explain this, and know that just because I make the effort doesn't mean I think it all holds together. Also, I don't know how to avoid making this the longest recaplet in history, so bear with me. We continue where we left off, two years ago with Boyd and Caroline, and he makes vague allusions to her blood, tested at a Rossum lab years earlier, showing her "amazing potential," before browbeating her into taking Adelle's offer of Dollhouse service while promising that he'd protect her.
Priya and Tony return to the Dollhouse, albeit reluctantly, and find the place littered with corpses. Meanwhile, Adelle and Ballard successfully escaped, along with Mellie (whose tracking device Ballard managed to remove), and they await a rescue chopper (where it's coming from is unclear) while tensely hoping their allies will make it out to join them. And they -- well, Topher and Echo -- do, but they're accompanied by Boyd, about whom no one knows the truth -- except a hysterical Echo who complains of feeling like she's on fire. The others mistakenly conclude that Caroline and Echo are at odds, thus causing the freak-out, and tranquilize her, after which Boyd tells them they have to get to Tucson and destroy the mainframe, using Caroline as bait to get in. Unbeknownst to them, however, Priya and Tony have discovered a note on the chair in the lab that reads "Press Enter," and can't resist imprinting Tony with whatever program is in there -- and he once again becomes Vicpher, which is a rather loving thing to do for the fans before the series ends, although he doesn't have the hair and the argyle sweater. Voice is uncanny, though. They wonder who could have left the Topher personality for them to find, but when Priya laments the fact that someone erased all the security footage, Vicpher recalls that Topher installed a security camera that no one else knew about, and they discover that Boyd drugged Echo, which leads them to the conclusion that Boyd's working for Rossum. Not exactly, but we'll take it! Vicpher suggests he whip up a super-imprint for Tony to give him skills that will balance out the fight against Rossum, and although Priya takes some convincing, Tony is soon a total bad-ass ninja.
In Tucson, the gang enters to find Whiskey, who's not sporting the Claire personality anymore. Instead, she's now Clyde Randolph Number Whatever-The-Hell, and she's acting awfully Eevil for a personality that was supposed to be devoid of all ambition. She tells Adelle that Caroline is their savior, not because of her mind, but because of her body, and I know Eliza's hot but that seems like a bit of an overstatement.
Meanwhile, Boyd keeps pretending to be a good guy as he breaks the rest of them out of confinement, but when he sends Ballard and Mellie off to get some weapons, Topher tells him the way Echo's acting is eerily similar to the way Priya did when Nolan drugged her on a serial basis, and also mentions the part where he left a backup of himself just in case Tony and Priya returned. Boyd's like oh, is that so, but he's got too much on his plate to do more than send a couple of goons after the two of them -- and that's before Echo shakes off the drug and comes to with Boyd in her sights. Boyd takes Topher into the research lab, where they discover that Rossum is ready to mass produce the technology Topher invented to imprint everyone in the world -- except none of the prototypes they have lying around the lab are actually functional. Boyd Svengalis Topher into fixing one of them for them to use against Rossum while Ballard and Mellie weapon up and resolve to find the mainframe. When they do, Mellie gets the brilliantly simple idea to pull the plug on the cooling units and overheat the mainframe's servers. Meanwhile, once Topher succeeds, Boyd just about reveals himself to him, but then Echo turns up and starts kicking the shit out of Boyd -- until Whiskey puts a gun to her head. Once the cat's out of the bag, Topher is especially hateful toward Boyd when he realizes he's the one responsible for Bennett's death, but Boyd ignores him in favor of making a grand speech about being on the right side when the technology is exploited, or whatever. Also, the reason he nurtured Echo's ability to block the imprints is that Caroline's body would produce a unique neurochemical tracer THAT THEY PLAN TO HARVEST FROM HER -- in other words, her spinal fluid will be used to make a vaccine against imprinting to protect a chosen few, which ow, and ew. He then zaps her with Topher's doohickey -- but Mellie and Ballard have just taken down the primary cooling systems, so Boyd puts a gun to Adelle's head and orders her to activate Mellie's sleeper programming, which I thought would have been eradicated when her service was up last year. Adelle sticks out her British chin and calls Boyd's bluff, but he gets his hands on a recording of the time Adelle had her kill Hearn, and Mellie starts shooting up the place and soon has a gun to Ballard's chin. He exhorts her to fight the programming, and she succeeds long enough to come out of sleeper state -- only to lose the battle and commit suicide rather than kill Ballard, earning her the Captain Terrell Memorial Award from Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan.
When Echo comes to, she has her spinal fluid extracted, most painfully, but Priya and Tony show up to rescue her with most excellent timing. She sends them to retrieve Adelle and Topher while she goes after Ballard (well, and Mellie, because she's not up on the most current events), and once Victor kicks some more ass, the four of them resolve to destroy all traces of the deadly technology. On her way to find Ballard, Echo runs into Whiskey, and tries to get her to overcome the Clyde imprint, while Boyd runs into a distraught Ballard, who still doesn't know Boyd is behind all this and blames Adelle for Mellie's death. Echo eventually knocks Whiskey out and turns her attention to the mainframe, but Boyd and Ballard show up, and Boyd finally gives up the ghost and puts his gun to Ballard's throat. Echo shoots Ballard in the leg to drop him from Boyd's grasp -- but it's Topher who saves the day by zapping Boyd and turning him into a Doll right as he's about to kill Echo. In quite the ironic twist of fate, she loads Doll Boyd up with explosives and has him walk a grenade into the server area and pull the pin, and that's all she wrote for the founder of Rossum. Echo goes off on an unknown errand but makes it out alive -- but ten years later, the world of Epitaph One is still happening, and it looks like the series finale will be set in 2020 -- in two weeks.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!We pick up right where we left off last week, as Caroline is telling Boyd that people will find out if anything happens to her. Boyd, however, opines that she could vanish off the face of the Earth and "not a soul" would notice she was gone, which okay, her boyfriend may have died and her BFF may be pissed at her over the whole arm thing, but just the fact that she had those relationships makes Boyd's statement kind of suspect. Boyd babbles for a bit about the extent of Rossum's reach, the point of which is to let Caroline know that they've been privy to medical information about her for quite some time, as she apparently got tested to see if she was a suitable bone-marrow donor for her cousin, who had leukemia. He adds that she's very interesting, "at least on a microscopic level," and if that's a veiled insult to the interest level of the total package I'm only too happy to snicker. Caroline asks a salient question, that being what he wants from her, so he tells her that he'd merely like a few years of her life, since the alternative for the terrorist acts she's committed will be life imprisonment or even death. Caroline tries for some bravado that even she can tell is unconvincing, and Boyd basically ignores it to tell her that she has amazing potential, and he wants to see how far she can go. Hate to ruin the suspense, dude, but a season and a half looks like the limit. He adds that he'll protect her, and when she asks how she can believe that, he puts on a maniacal-adjacent smile: "You'll learn to trust me."
Back in the present, Priya tells Tony she doesn't want to go back to the Dollhouse, but the fact that they're currently in one of its elevators suggests the conviction isn't all that strong. He does indulge her, though, saying that they can leave, find a doctor to "rip out all this crap they put in our heads," and never look back, but of course Priya wasn't serious, saying that even though she doesn't want to risk losing him, she couldn't live with herself if they didn't return to help Echo and the others against Rossum. When they descend to the lab, however, they find the place dark and littered with corpses, which...where are all the commandos? Did they leave without having captured a single important person? Whatever, this is the least of my issues with this episode and I'm going to have to pace myself. Tony notes that the war started without them, and we go to the opening credits...
...after which we cut to, I think, the roof, to which both Ballard and Adelle have managed to escape. After Ballard crunches his phone under his boot so Rossum can't track them through it, he tells Adelle that "the chopper" will be there soon (supplied by which of their oh-so-many allies, I'd like to know -- I find it doubtful they'd even try to use Rossum's transportation, as if they were smart, they'd assume Rossum would only be setting them up to be captured), and they're not going to be able to wait for their allies much longer. Adelle, however, demurs, so Ballard goes to check on Mellie, whose GPS tag he apparently removed from her neck in a field operation, and given how sexy they seemed to think that procedure is I'm surprised they didn't show it on-screen. After Mellie thanks him, she leans in for a kiss, but he pulls away, although at this point with their lives on the line I don't know why he doesn't just go for it. Oh yes, I forgot: He's an idiot. Anyway, Mellie at least doesn't take his rejection badly, saying she knows that her feelings for him have been implanted, and he in turn at least tells her he's glad they're together. Further discussion, however, is put on hold when they hear the squeal of tires headed in their direction, and Adelle and Ballard draw weapons and stand at the ready, and it's not like they don't look intimidating but you'd think they'd POSITION THEMSELVES BEHIND THEIR TRUCK FOR COVER. Gah. Anyway, the good news (at least from their point of view) is that it's Boyd, Topher, and Echo, but the problem is that Echo is freaking the hell out about how she feels like she's being burned and whatever, and after they tranquilize her, Adelle wonders why the shit this is happening, and Topher says it doesn't make any sense, even though HE AND IVY WERE THE ONES CONCERNED ABOUT SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAPPENING IN THE FIRST PLACE. I mean, this is one episode ago, show. Boyd suggests that the wedge might have been too damaged, giving Topher a chance to be all "BENNETT FIXED THE WEDGE!" like, your loyalty is touching, Bennett's estate will send you a check, let's move on here. Adelle finally remembers that the thought of Caroline and Echo inhabiting the same brain came with a warning label, and, presumably since there's no apparent fix for that, Ballard thinks they have no choice but to call off their assault on Tucson, particularly because Echo's now incapable of indentifying Rossum's founder. Boyd, however, pushes his private agenda by saying that if they do that, everything Echo has become will be for naught. Ballard wonders how they'll even get inside Rossum now, but Adelle thinks they can just walk in through the front door, as they have something Rossum wants -- Caroline. True, but how is handing yourselves to them on a platter going to help your overall situation? Whatever, I told you last week I don't understand battle tactics.
Back in the Dollhouse, Tony and Priya are continuing to discover that the place is empty, but the salient point is that the invaders took all the hard drives so the security footage is gone, like, was that the point of the entire raid? I realize it's necessary for the twist later, but I thought the primary focus would have been to capture everyone. Maybe Boyd really wanted to get his hands on the shower footage. They decide to get the hell out of there, for which I can hardly blame them, but on the way to the elevator, Priya notices that there's a cartridge in the imprint chair with a note that says "Press Enter" and a smiley face, which is pretty hilarious. They argue about whether to follow the instruction, with Priya saying it could kill them, as they don't know who left it there. Oh, come on, Priya, didn't you see the smiley? A killer would surely opt for a frown or at least a mischievous wink. Anyway, Tony's logic, combined with his reminder that he always remembers her no matter what the circumstances, thankfully overwhelms Priya's frankly rather whiny protests, and after he instructs her to shoot him if he turns evil and they make out a bit, he steels himself and gets in the chair. She sends him down, and when he comes back up, he's Vicpher again, and I almost want to accuse them of doing some ADR trickery because Enver Gjokaj's mimicry of Fran Kranz's voice is so spot-on as to be uncanny. Vicpher, taking in the situation, asks why they're arming the Dolls, but Priya tells him she's, well, Priya, and I'm guessing he hasn't updated the imprint since we last saw it, because he's a little slow on the uptake here. Seeing Bennett's blood spatter, he asks if he's dead, which is pretty funny...
...but we don't have any more time for him at the moment, as we have to check in at Rossum. Our six troopers march into Rossum headquarters, whereupon they run into Whiskey, who just so happens to be Clyde SomeLargeNumber.0 at the moment and is wearing a rather masculine suit for emphasis. Topher's all "Lemme at her" in regard to Bennett, and Whiskey, perhaps doing him a solid in recognition of his grief, chooses not to wipe the floor with him in 0.38 seconds. Instead, (s)he tells Boyd, who's playing his part perfectly here, that she "evicted" Claire from her body, and then turns to Echo, who she says she's just so excited to see her again. She speechifies some more about the new order, but it's far too talky and boring given that there are barely more than one hundred minutes left in the entire series, so let's cut to the chase: Adelle asks if there's a place for them in the world Rossum's creating, and Whiskey replies, "Isn't that what you're here to find out?" Well, yes, given that she JUST ASKED YOU THE QUESTION, GOD! Commercials.
Vicpher babbles about how Topher's "physique" was a point of pride for him, and I won't disagree but can we KEEP THINGS MOVING HERE? Priya notes that they don't know he's dead, and I'd add that if he were, I don't know who would have left his personality so conveniently queued up for them to find, and...oh, there's Priya saying the exact same thing, and Vicpher sees the logic. Anyway, they finally get somewhere when Priya mentions the stolen security footage, as Vicpher recalls that Topher had a private camera installed that no one else knew about (except WHOEVER INSTALLED IT, but fine), and they're very soon reviewing the footage of Echo being in the chair, Topher getting knocked out (to which Vicpher completely doesn't react, like, if you're so concerned about Topher being dead you might flinch at least a little at TAKING A RIFLE BUTT IN THE FACE), and then they catch Boyd throwing something away all casual-like, which is fine except he's ACTING LIKE HE KNOWS A CAMERA IS THERE, and I don't usually let these things bug me so much but when an episode makes no sense from the top down it's kind of hard not to. Anyway, they discover a syringe in the wastebasket and quickly come to the conclusion that Boyd's working for Rossum, which, as I said in the recaplet, is certainly close enough for now.
Whiskey is entertaining Adelle in her office, and again: Talky and boring, despite Amy Acker's proficiency at adopting male body language, so here's the gist: (S)he is very happy with the job Adelle did in protecting Echo, which is hilarious given that she sent her to the Attic and also couldn't stop her from going missing for three solid months, and as a reward for such "good work" she's going to be one of the chosen few that Caroline saves. Adelle points out that Caroline's mind is fubar at the moment, but she says it doesn't matter -- it's the body they want. She then gets heterosexually lesbianic as she strokes Adelle's hair and tells her she knew she'd deliver Caroline to them, which considering she was in her House doesn't seem like such a leap, and when Adelle craftily says she'd like to meet their leader who has such faith in her, Whiskey tells her she knows he's looking forward to that. Me too -- let's MOVE IT ALONG.
Ballard, Mellie, Boyd, and Topher are locked up together, and Boyd is making a show of trying to hotwire the electronic lock. Once no one's eyes are on him, though, he pulls out a Rossum Founder All-Access Keycard and opens the door, and at least now the question of how he was able to give Echo such a powerful tool is answered. Boyd sends Ballard and Mellie off to find the place's weapons cache while he and Topher look for Echo...
...while back at the Dollhouse, Vicpher is babbling about how he's kind of impressed with Boyd's efficient duplicity, while Priya's more concerned with why she can't find Mellie on the map. Vicpher correctly concludes that her chip has been deactivated, so Priya urgently says they have to go help their friends. Vicpher, however, thinks that would be an exercise in futility -- until he offers to sacrifice himself so he can imprint Tony with a bunch of special skills on top of his regular personality. Priya warily asks what those might be, and Vicpher tells her it'll be a lot of combat stuff, but he'll also throw in cooking ability. "Doesn't sound important now, but if you two end up getting married, you'll thank me!" Hee. Priya's still unconvinced, and Topher gets that she thinks "the tech is responsible" for the situation they're in, which is the second time this "no more technology" idea has been mentioned in this episode, and I know this is foreshadowing a return to the world of "Epitaph One" but we're going to be there in like half an hour anyway, so please shut up, and get to the point, which is this: The good guys need this to have a fighting chance. There, now was that so hard?
At Rossum, Boyd and Topher lurk in the corridors, and then Topher tells Boyd again that the wedge wasn't corrupted, but this time adds that even if it were, it wouldn't cause Echo to behave the way she is. Boyd asks for an alternate theory, and Topher says that while he doesn't have proof, he thinks the way Echo's acting is very similar to the way Priya did when Nolan was drugging her. Moreover, while he doesn't know who could have done it, he does know it has to have been someone in the Dollhouse, and he left an imprint of himself that he hopes Priya and Tony found. "Hopefully [they're] on their way with reinforcements. Go team!" Heh. Boyd looks at him like, if I had five extra minutes I'd totally kill you dead right now, but instead, he thanks him for confiding in him, which I'll admit made me laugh. Boyd then leaves Topher while he pursues a security guard with the stated intent of obtaining his gun, but more likely to do something about the potential situation back at the Dollhouse...
...and then we cut to Tony coming out of the chair again. He says he doesn't feel any different -- until the elevator door opens and two masked commandos barely have time to blink before he Tony-fus them into unconsciousness. He and Priya are both basically like, "Cool!" which I admit would also be my reaction, and then Tony, after noting that it looks like someone is aware that they're there, suggests taking the fight to Rossum. If it goes anything like what we just saw, Boyd's in more trouble than he thought. And also, since he's their Supreme Leader and all, was it necessary for him to kill that commando at the end of last episode? Couldn't he just have given him the day off?
After an ominous close-up of some vials, the significance of which will become clear later, we see Echo lying in a reclining dentist-office-esque chair. She gets a series of memories, many of which are Caroline's, and when they're done, she sits up with a start, remembers everything, and seethes, "Boyd." Now, maybe, we're getting somewhere, but not before these messages.
Boyd, having secured a gun as he promised and also retrieved Topher, leads the way to the R&D lab, and once again surreptitiously uses his clearance to open the door. Topher wonders why they're not going after Echo, but Boyd employs the strategy of ignoring him and hoping he'll forget the question as soon as he sees something shiny, which, unsurprisingly, works like a charm. They discover that Rossum has been moving very quickly on the front of mass-producing Topher's gizmo to imprint anyone, and hilariously, Boyd tries to zap Topher with one of the prototypes and then is disappointed when it doesn't work. You'd think, though, that Boyd actually ATTEMPTING TO WIPE HIS MIND might clue Topher in to the fact that this man is not on his side, but no, he just acts like nothing happened and muses that Rossum's set up for mass production, like, I don't know how he came to that conclusion by taking a glance around ONE ROOM, but regardless, he takes one of the prototypes and throws it on the ground. Boyd, however, suggests that if Topher could get one of them to work, they could use it against Rossum, and forget both the fact that that's moronic on general principles and that their priority should be to find Echo and their friends so they can ID the founder, if Boyd were the person he appears to be he would never endorse using a device that turns people into Dolls, even their enemies, so even though Topher and morality are strange bedfellows, I'd think he'd figure out not to do this. Especially since BOYD TRIED TO SHOOT HIM WITH THE DEVICE HELLO! Oh, and by the way, since we're on the subject, how does the device actually serve to imprint people? Where does it get the imprints from? Is it just a way of playing musical chairs with people's personalities, or what? Not that it's going to matter, but since I'm picking everything apart in this episode I don't know why that stupid doohickey should be spared.
Elsewhere in the building, Ballard knocks out a guard, and he and Mellie use his ID to open a weapons locker and grab some guns. They then talk about their relationship, and when Mellie mentions again that she's a "program," Ballard confesses that he is too, but it doesn't matter, and they're going to be the best little replicants they can be, or whatever. I mean, their conversation is brief enough to be tolerable, but his declaration that he "[doesn't] want to reach the end without [her]" is signing her death warrant in classic ironic TV fashion, so once again, I must ask them to keep things moving, and they oblige as they set out to find the mainframe.
Topher has a revelation about the gadget as Boyd stands over his shoulder, too interested in the whole process to an almost cartoonish level, and when Topher explains just exactly what has to be done, Boyd finally, and thankfully, gives up the ghost as he puts a hand on Topher's shoulder and says he's glad he chose him. Topher's like, who in the what now, to which Boyd just smiles as he walks away and starts to draw his gun. He gets a surprise, though, when Echo comes flying out of nowhere and starts beating the crap out of him, while Topher is like "ECHO WHAT ARE YOU DOING" and my God, how slow are you? Remember when Crazy Agnes was going to burn Jenny Humphrey's designs on Gossip Girl, and she put them in a trash can and poured gasoline all over them for like thirty seconds and then lit a match and waited like another minute, and all the while Jenny was like "WHAT IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN HERE?" He's making her look positively with it by comparison. I mean, I know he's under the impression that Echo's still delirious, except delirious people generally can't kick the asses of lucid ones, and also Boyd just TOLD HIM HE CHOSE HIM AND HE KNOWS THERE'S AN UNIDENTIFIED ROSSUM HEAD LURKING! Anyway, before Echo can break Boyd's jaw, a gun is held up to her head, and when she turns, it's Whiskey, who's like, "I have enhanced weapons skills. Anyone care to see a demonstration?" Amy Acker doesn't have nearly enough to do in this episode, but I certainly enjoyed that line. When we pull back, we see she's got a gun in her other hand as well with which she's holding Adelle at bay, and then Topher asks what's going on, like I can't take much more of this, so finally Echo and then Adelle affirm that Boyd is the founder of Rossum, and Echo adds that he was going to kill Topher. Boyd, however, actually looks hurt as he asks if she really thought he was going to kill Topher, and Echo asks why, then, he brought him there, instead of asking WHY HE WAS DRAWING HIS GUN. He tells them that they're his family. "I love you guys." If I actually believed he really thought that, it would have the potential to be interesting, but did I mention the part where he and Topher were the only ones in the room and he was DRAWING HIS GUN? Man, I'm a lot madder at this episode than I realized.
Ballard and Mellie pass a room that Ballard explains houses the cooling system for the mainframe, and Mellie wonders, then, what happens if they, say, turn it off. Ballard's like, wow, that's smart, and as a reward he kisses her ON THE FOREHEAD, like, I wonder if it's not his connection to Caroline but his heterosexuality that Topher eradicated.
Now that Topher finally has caught up to the rest of the class, he brings up Bennett AGAIN in seething that Boyd killed her. Kid, I liked her too, but she was on for three episodes. You don't see me bringing up Laurence Dominic every chance I...hmm, never mind. Anyway, Boyd compliments them all on their sacrifice and determination, or whatever, although the faces Adelle makes through his speechifying are deliciously sour, I have to say. He adds that he wanted them all with him, "except for [Ballard]. There's always one relative you can live without." Okay, heh, but he's basically saying he's been the puppet master the entire time, right? So with unlimited vision and resources and a mission to protect Echo above all else, how is it that she almost died on so many occasions I could spend a day looking up all the hyperlinks? Also, let's not forget that Echo also only is still alive because Alpha saw fit to spare her, which as far as we know had nothing to do with Boyd. Ugh, this really is not doing it for me at all, here. Adelle gets a good line off when she says she'd rather die that watch him "fiddling while Rome burns," and Boyd loses me even further when he says that she'll probably be imprinted and enslaved instead of dead, like, WHO'S GOING TO BE DOING THE IMPRINTING? He says that the once the technology gets out there, it will be abused, and I still don't understand how he can be talking about the advent of technology that HE HIMSELF CONTROLS like it's some sort of passive weather pattern, but they can choose what side they'll be on. Adelle opines that he's "spectacularly insane," and I'll allow that she's half right, at least. Echo hisses and spits in his direction, and he tries to tell her that he did care for her, more than she'll ever know, and that's why he let her become her own person, and it's not like I believe that even he buys this crap if he's going to be STEALING HER SPINAL FLUID IN FIVE MINUTES, which is just what he's getting to -- every time she blocks an imprint, her system leaves "neurochemical tracers" that, I think, act to immunize her from being imprinted, or at least from losing her core personality, or whatever I DON'T CARE AT THIS POINT GET IT OVER WITH. He tells her the stuff she makes is conveniently not replicable, so they're going to harvest it from her, like, first off, how they could have known just from a blood test that her body would behave this way when imprinted is completely beyond me. Also, doesn't Alpha, under the Dollhouse's thumb for years, have the same ability? Couldn't they have done this years ago with him? Whatever, Boyd says they're going to use her spinal fluid to make a vaccine against imprinting, and then he zaps her with the gizmo, maybe to get that spinal fluid flowing, and knocks her out...
...while in the cooling room, Mellie and Ballard start smashing shit up. Cut back to Boyd on the phone telling whoever it is to bring the secondary cooling system on line, like, I can see why he's the boss if he can come up with an order like that on the fly, and then he puts a gun to Adelle's head and tells her to activate Mellie's sleeper protocol. I thought that bit would have been deleted long ago, but it occurred to me that Adelle might have purposely left it in so that she could activate Mellie to use against their enemies, and it's an ironic twist that it's being used against her. Hard to believe I'm giving this episode the benefit of the doubt at this point, but here we are. Adelle calmly faces Boyd and tells him to go ahead and shoot. "I'm sure I'll be far more talkative with my brains splattered all over Topher." The look on Topher's face is what makes it art...
...but soon, just after Ballard gives Mellie a weapon and they separate to better handle the coming onslaught, Adelle's voice comes on the P.A.: "There are three flowers in a vase." Ballard yells for Mellie to cover her ears, but it's too late, and we see that Boyd played a recording of the time Adelle activated Mellie to kill Hearn, which I presume he got from one of the hard drives his goons took from the Dollhouse. Since Ballard was so quick to recognize it, though, I wonder if he knows the countercommand, and if it would work coming from him or if it has to come from Adelle. Anyway, Mellie starts shooting up the place in an attempt to kill Ballard, even after he puts down his gun and says he won't hurt her, causing steam to start flowing freely from the pipes. The diminished visibility allows Ballard to get behind Mellie and grab her around the neck, but after he tries to get her to remember who she is, she gets free of his grasp, grabs him by the throat, and holds a gun up to his chin. At that point, however, she succeeds in fighting the control, at least partially, and she cries as she tells him that when they were together, he made her feel like a real person. I'm guessing The Velveteen Mellie isn't going to have a happy ending here. Sure enough, she pulls away, causing a misguided smile to break out on Ballard's face, but after another moment, she turns her face from him and blows her own brains out, spattering her blood across Ballard's face, which I'm beginning to think leaves something to be desired as a serialized occurrence. On the other hand, as I mentioned in the recaplet, Paul Winfield would be so proud.
Echo's on a gurney getting ready for the, well, harvest, as Boyd assures her they can extract her spinal fluid without killing her, which, well, that may be, but last time I checked you actually NEED SPINAL FLUID FOR CERTAIN THINGS, YOU KNOW? Anyway, Boyd orders them to start the extraction, which they do, most painfully, and for one, I didn't need to see that, but also, since he claims to care for her so much you'd think the founder of the biggest drug company in the world could KNOCK HER OUT FOR THIS PROCEDURE. God! Commercials.
When we return, Echo's still being drained of that spinal fluid that I'm sure she won't miss at all, but when one of the lab techs hears something outside, he stupidly opens the door instead of CALLING SECURITY, like, what's the use in having these electronic locks if people are just going to OPEN THE DOOR for intruders? Anyway, Victor and Priya rush in and get the guy to release Echo, and once he does, Victor sleeper-holds him into unconsciousness, and then the two of them get Echo up amid some quips I won't bother transcribing. Echo then, after ascertaining that the two of them know about Boyd's treachery, tells them he's got Adelle and Topher, and sends the two of them to remedy that and also to track down Ballard and Mellie. Given that they seem to be doing everything, Priya justifiably asks what Echo is going to do, and she replies that she's going to do something Caroline tried to do two years earlier. "Shut this place down for good." So I'm assuming Caroline has been successfully integrated into Echo, which perhaps seems a bit thorny but I doubt they'll even address the issue. Now's not the time, anyway. Dramatic music of Let's Get 'Em, Team kicks up...
...and then we cut to Adelle and Topher, being guarded by two security dudes. Topher laments the fact that he's the one that's bringing about the "thought-pocalypse," and Adelle barely has the strength to WTF that before taking her share of the blame for giving the plans to Keith Carradine, which...maybe, but at least she did it to get the House back so she could implement her Operation Rossum Take-Down. The price may have been too high, but it's better than Topher, who invented the technology for literally no reason other than that he couldn't help himself. Topher at least puts the responsibility for destroying the technology on himself, but since it's not clear exactly how he plans to do that at the moment, it's just as well when more guards lead Priya in. She whispers to her two allies to take cover, and then Tony comes in and dispatches all their enemies in a few short seconds, even breaking the burliest guy's neck with his bare hands, prompting Topher to admiringly call him an "army of one" (heh) before asking if Tony is still Vicpher (double heh). Priya explains that it's Anthony with a few enhancements, and given their history, Adelle's appreciative "Really!" is the line of the episode. Hee. Topher then says they need to destroy the prototypes and the equipment and plans used to make them...
...while Echo, on her way to do something along those lines, runs into Whiskey, and they point guns at each other while Echo tries to get Whiskey or Claire or some personality that isn't Evil Clyde to take over, and by the way, I made this point in the recaplet but didn't Boyd supposedly make the New Clyde Series, like, unambitious? Because Whiskey looks like she'd take over the world given half a chance. She did say earlier that she made some changes to her "operating system," but...she wouldn't do that if she had no aspirations, I don't think. Anyway, Whiskey starts to look overcome, but when Echo drops her guard, she punches her gun away -- she was only faking, which THANK GOD, because this Little Engine That Could business about overcoming the programming was bad enough with Mellie. Echo does a spinning kick that disarms her opponent, but after pointing out that (s)he doesn't care what happens to her host body, (s)he tackles Echo...
...while Boyd is on the phone getting the bad news about her escape, and seriously, we saw like five times as many security invade the Dollhouse at the end of last episode than we've seen here at Rossum's stronghold. How is this so easy for them? Anyway, Boyd runs into Ballard, who hasn't yet gotten the memo that Boyd is Eevil, and instead blames Adelle for Mellie's death, thinking that she gave a live performance earlier, even though (a) that's stupid, and (b) Boyd just PUT HIS HANDS IN THE AIR upon seeing your gun pointed at him, like, WHY WOULD HE DO THAT IF HE WERE REALLY YOUR FRIEND? While I'm at it, although there were like two drops of Mellie's blood on his face in the last scene, the right side of his face is covered in it now -- did he make out with her corpse off-screen? Anyway, Ballard explains about "Adelle" killing Mellie, and Boyd at least convincingly sells the sympathy before running with the story, saying "whoever's running things" got to her. They resolve to take her down...
...while Echo and Whiskey are having a little knock-down drag-out, and the fight choreography is pretty good, not to mention that I always enjoy Amy Acker as a throwing-down badass. However, Echo succeeds in bashing Whiskey's face into the wall a couple times, although she takes care to stop once she sees she's unconscious. That's not exactly going to heal those scars, though. The fight, by the way, has conveniently taken them into what looks like the control room for the mainframe, and Echo picks up Whiskey's gun before looking around and deciding just how to proceed. Unfortunately, Boyd and Ballard then turn up, and Echo gets agitated as she asks Ballard what he thinks he's doing. He starts to explain, but thankfully Boyd cuts him off by, with a hilarious casual movement, sticking the muzzle of his gun into Ballard's jaw, and Ballard gives an equally hilarious "THAT'S an onion in the ointment" look in response. He asks, "What did I miss?" and the show is kind enough to give us the last commercial break so we can work on our list.
Echo finally brings Ballard up to speed before telling Boyd she's now everything he made her. He tells her that's good, since that means she still trusts him with her life, and even though she looks uncertain and tortured it's kind of hard to buy that since she BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF HIM UNTIL WHISKEY PULLED HER OFF, my God, the intra-episode continuity here is among the worst I've ever seen. Ballard tries to get her to shoot, and I assume he means "at Boyd" but he'll be kicking himself for not being clear soon enough. Because, as Boyd starts to babble about how she can't do it because of [stupid reasons I don't care about], Echo shoots Ballard in the leg, causing him to double over and away from Boyd, and then Boyd and Echo are fighting. So here's a question: Did Boyd just happen to have these fighting skills as head of Rossum? Because if not, if they were implanted, that would mean he had to have Active architecture, which we know he didn't from when Alpha wiped all the Dolls in the Dollhouse. So he's a street fighter as well as an evil genius. Great. Boyd gets Echo down on the floor and muses that he wanted to keep her around because he likes her, but he doesn't really need her alive, and I guess he knows that they got some of her spinal fluid, otherwise something Whiskey said earlier about needing her alive (happened in the fight; didn't mention it at the time) was wrong. It all becomes irrelevant, though, because just as Boyd is about to kill Echo, we hear an electronic whine, and Boyd sits up with a blank expression on his face -- Topher wiped him, and I'm guessing rather than take the time to fix another prototype he picked the one he got to work earlier up from the lab where Boyd apparently left it, conveniently. After falling to the floor, Boyd sits back up and asks if he fell asleep, and an emotional Echo confirms, "For a little while," and while that's touching and special I don't know why Rossum would have included that ritual when people who are being wiped for the purpose of being enslaved presumably aren't going to have Handlers, but let's not dwell on that...
...and instead jump ahead a little in time, as Boyd is standing quiescently when Echo puts a grenade into his hand and tells him, after she leaves, to walk into the control room and pull the pin, and I'll admit to being a big fan of this resolution despite all my problems with the episode. Boyd says he understands, and that he tries to be his best, and all Echo can say in response is "Good," which was probably meant to be touching but in execution comes off as hilarious. When she walks away, we see that Boyd is wearing a belt with several explosives attached to it, which I guess they got from Rossum's explosives division. They keep those around for the clinical trials that don't work out, you know. Echo takes a look back at him, and the empty yet loving smile he gives her is certainly one of the best things about the episode. Harry Lennix, you deserved better material for your swan song. Once she closes the door, he looks down at the grenade...
...and then we cut to Ballard and Topher shepherding dozens upon dozens of people out, like, where were all of them when HALF THE EPISODE HAPPENED? Topher tosses in a continuity-demanded ADR line about how he got Whiskey out, although I think we could have assumed that they didn't leave her lying in the control room, and then Adelle asks Ballard where Echo is, and Ballard says she said she's coming, like, what is he doing evacuating the place if he didn't know that she went to BLOW IT UP, and then everyone's out in the courtyard and Echo's running down the hall and Rossum go boom, and she couldn't have asked Boyd to count out a certain number of Mississippis before blowing himself up? But then she's magically in the courtyard, so I seriously don't know what that last bit with the flames in the hallway catching up to her was all about, but Ballard wryly asks if they saved the world, and she thinks they did, and I wonder, given that Ballard's in such a good mood all of a sudden, if he also managed to get Dead Mellie's corpse out or if he left it there to burn. But their exchange is of course just meant for irony, as ten years later, the world of "Epitaph One" is still going strong, and we see a shot of Ballard and Echo shooting at people before Echo tells him they have to keep moving. Well, as much as I hated this episode, given how good "Epitaph One" was I still have high hopes for the finale. Of course, that's usually the kiss of death, so keep your fingers crossed.
John Ramos is a writer and film producer living in Los Angeles. You can reach him at couchbaron@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/couchbaron.